Wednesday, May 11, 2011

What a joy it is, Mortals, seeing Marvel Studios' Thor, directed by Kenneth Brannagh, kicking ass at the U.S. boxoffice! Did you not expect any less from ye olde House of Ideas? Besides, Thor The Movie, along with Captain America: The First Avenger, is just the prelude. Next summer's big Avengers epic is the intended real deal; thus, this brief missive saying: Pray kick ye more butte, Milord Odinson!

And while you're at it, Marvel Studios, give the Warriors Three their own movie, too! Fandral, Hogun and Volstagg are so much fun together, say I --- indeed, here's what NBCNewYork.com's PopcornBiz blog has to say about it:

Thor's closest (and toughest) pals are ready for more Asgard-kickin' action --- but would you dare line up for Warriors Three, The Movie?

Ray Stevenson as Volstagg, Josh Dallas as Fandral, and Tadanobu Asano as Hogun --- who practically steal their swashbuckling scenes in the big Thor adventure --- would doubtless be ready to take up their battle gear in their very own solo adventure.... if the fans demand it!

"It'd certainly be pretty sweet," says Dallas. "Never assume anything, but hell yeah, the Warriors Three would be up for some great times, that's for sure. Anything can happen in the realm of possibility. It hasn't been mentioned that I know of, but you never know."

"The more the fans clamor, the more chance there is," agrees Stevenson. "There's this untold story about the love there is with the Warriors Three --- I dunno if people are ready for it."

"You never know," smiles Marvel Studios President, CEO and Executive Producer Kevin Feige, who says the company is seriously exploring giving secondary cast members of the Marvel Universe their own movies, should the interest be there. "What's fun to me about the Warriors Three is that folks seem to like them. People love how they were presented in this movie, and their main note might be, 'I wanna see more of them.' I think that, for Thor 2, if we should be so lucky, there's an opportunity for that. But you never know."

For Dallas, the three actors enjoyed slipping into their costumes and makeup that transformed them into literal doppelgangers of Jack Kirby's original characters, becoming completely unrecognizable as themselves. "Even where I was on the set at the end of the day and it was time to take off the makeup, including the wig and the beard," he says, "I'd be on the set with these guys for between 9 and 10 hours a day, I'd pass 'em by and say, 'Hi! How you doin'?' And they'd all be like, 'Who is that guy?' "

Stevenson, on the other hand, was far more fit and fiery in character as lovable Volstagg than his comic-book counterpart, who's best-loved for his enormous girth and even bigger appetites. "I thought I'd be waddling around, sitting down, having a sandwich, amybe one or two libations, red wine," he says, "but no: Big, double-headed, 6-plated battleaxe waging war against the Frost Giants and then going off to challenge the Destroyer."

Having previously doled out Marvelesque vigilante justice in The Punisher: War Zone, Stevenson is open to any number of offers from the company. "I love working with Marvel," he says. "They're supremely loyal, supremely driven, and they're their own biggest fans --- they literally are the geeks of their own works! Because they're the producers, they're on set every day, and every note that they give is because of the love they have for their characters. There's never a negative note when it comes to Marvel: all to enhance, all to build. It's a real inspiration, just working with them."

And just think: this is the same Marvel that let George Lucas do Howard the Duck! By Merlin's beard, we've come way past 360 degrees from 26 years ago, eh what? Well, let ol' Blackwolf just say this: You bet your ass I'd line up for a Warriors Three movie! Kevin, methinks ye knowst what to do, so..... (Heh-heh!)